Rick Kinnaird

Saturday April 10, 2021

George Floyd – The defense has been trying to suggest that there were other factors in the death of Mr. Floyd, other than a policeman having his knee and body weight on the man’s neck for close to ten minutes. That was put to rest this week by three medical experts: a pulmonologist, a forensic pathologist (I think that was her title), and the doctor who did the autopsy. It’s hard to say which one was the most damning. Certainly the pulmonologist had the jury on the edge of their seats as he explained when Floyd took his last breath and for how long the police officer continued to keep his knee in place. The other thing the pulmonologist pointed out was that at one point Floyd’s knuckle was slightly pushed out. That the pulmonologist pointed out was Floyd’s attempt to breath through his finger tips. His last act before his breath left his body.

The defense went to the autopsy report, which mentioned hypertension and coronary problems as “contributing factors.” So the defense asked couldn’t those have contributed to his death. No, they are listed as contributing in the sense that they didn’t help his condition, but they didn’t kill him. What killed him according to the autopsy was asphyxiation – period. 

Then the defense asked the forensic pathologist if his drug use and hypertension didn’t cause his death? No, there is no evidence that it did. She went into some detail as to why. Basically, there was nothing to suggest that this was a drug overdose or contributing factor.

We watched the first episode of “This is a Robbery” about the theft of paintings from the Isabella Gardiner Museum in Boston thirty years ago. I had been to the Gardiner before the theft and returned after as well. It is one of my favorite museums. Not only do they have some terrific works of art it is also like a walk through western history of art. Each room is a gallery with a different look and feel. To hear some of the guides talk about what it is like to be there at night and to be around all those fabulous paintings is enough to make me cry with joy for them. 

Gardiner stopped collecting about the time the Impressionists were getting going. She has a Manet but the collection stops about there. That is where my other favorite museum picks up The Barnes Collection now in Philadelphia. Both museums are not large. Not small but not huge, like the Metropolitan or the British Museum. You can see the whole collection in a day, but it takes a lifetime to appreciate. They are places to come back to. Every time you will see something new, although nothing has changed. It’s like seeing old friends. 

What strikes me about the Gardiner theft is how amateurish it was. There was some forethought, but not a lot. It may have been an inside job, but who? And where are the paintings? There are only three possibilities. Either a very rich person hired these thieves to do the job and has them hidden in a room, of they are still in storage somewhere – too hot to handle. The third possibility is a hybrid of the first two. Someone could be painting fakes of the stolen paintings and passing them off as the real thing. Selling multiple copies to be hidden away.

I suspect it option 2 – too hot to handle. If the robbers were in their 30s at the time of the robbery they are in their late 60s or early 70s now. I suspect a deathbed confession soon or a locker somewhere goes unpaid after someone’s death. We’ll see.

Then there’s the whole vaccine thing. Some people are saying they are “still considering” whether to get the shot. WTF? Okay, let’s break this down. How many people in the USA have gotten vaccinated? Answer: 132,000,000. How many have died as a result of getting the vaccine? Answer: 0. 

How many people in the USA have gotten Covid? Answer: 30,734,477. How many have died from Covid? Answer: 557,093.

What are the chances of getting Covid once vaccinated? Close to 0.

What are the chances of getting Covid if not vaccinated? 1% 

What are the chances of dying from Covid? 2%

Hum.

The unanswered question is if you get Covid what are the chances you will pass it to someone else? What if they die? Can you live with that?

Friday April 9, 2021

Prince Phillip died. Married to Queen Elizabeth II for 73 years. I remember seeing the photos in Life Magazine when she became queen, 1952. Wow. What a long strange journey for them. World War II had ended less than a decade before. TV really hadn’t come in much. Radio was still dominant. Now to see the queen not as that vital young woman when she was crowned but a shrunken old lady mussing about tea and christenings.

In other news, I got to wonder. “If Matt Gaetz considers himself such a lady’s man why was he paying for sex?” 

Fox hasn’t had him on since the Tucker Carlson “I don’t know what you are talking about” interview. He had been on something just shy of 400 times in the run up to the election. Now? “Matt who?” And, if that isn’t bad enough Marjorie Taylor-Greene has scrubbed her Instagram account of his name. And his wingman, that tax collector guy in Florida who wanted everyone in the office to be armed and was swipping driver’s licenses out of the “To Be Shredded” bin and was trolling for women, and girls, on line for sex and passing them off to Gaetz? That guy. He may be turning state’s evidence (or do we say Fed evidence). I don’t know why he’s doing that maybe when you are facing the rest of your life in jail you do that kind of thing? (Now for the sake of fairness and full disclosure Matt has not been charged with anything he says he never paid for sex. He never had sex with a seventeen year old girl. That the trip to the Bahamas with women was merely a fishing trip. And the giving money to young women was an act of kindness and I guess not a “sugar daddy” relationship as has been reported.)

Joe Biden is pushing ahead with the infrastructure bill and talking about gun violence. He says one hundred people a day dying in this country is an epidemic. Wonder what the gun folks call it? Freedom?

Satan has hired another lawyer. This one to deal with the New York investigations. I wonder how Satan will excuse not paying that guy? 

In Covid news, we have some variants that are becoming dominant. More young people are becoming infected and this new strain is more pernicious. Yet, the medical experts say that if you get vaccinated you may have bad symptoms, but you won’t die. If you don’t get vaccinated? Well, you could die. You could spread the virus. You could kill others. Yeah, go ahead. Think about it. 

PS They still sell the Red Ryder BB gun! (I never thought about this before but the guy on the package is a red head. Little known fact Ramses II was a red head, as was his whole family.)

Wednesday April 8, 2021

I have read about abusive relationships where a dominant woman forces a submissive male into giving her all his money and he is left starving (and vice versa). I guess it happens. I never expected to witness it from a political party in our country, but here we are.

After the New York Times revealed that the Trump campaign had to return over $122 million dollars in campaign donations and that they were hit with hundreds of thousands of complaints of theft, fraud, and stealing what did the National Republican Party do? Be contrite? Say they were sorry? That if wouldn’t happen again? NO WAY.

Double Down. That’s the ticket!

Apparently what happened was they sent out emailers asking for donations. If you gave money they pre-checked boxes saying make it monthly, or in some cases make it weekly, and then they also pre-checked another box that said give that same donation around the time of Donald’s birthday June 15^th. Nice. (“You should sign something if you haven’t read the whole thing!” blah blah blah – Like what the Republicans say of the kids caught in the student debt scam.)

In the most recent round of mailers the Republicans are saying per-checking the boxes – again, but this time they are saying they will report you to Donald Trump for being disloyal and accuse you of helping The Radical Left if you do uncheck the box. Nice. Double nice, in fact.

The Matt Gaetz thing gets worse – I forget how, but he pulled it off.

The trial about the man who killed George Floyd grinds on. Apparently, this 19 or was it 21 year veteran was not trained to put his knee on the neck of someone until they were dead. So how did it happen? Crappy training? No training? Racism? 

The defense is saying that Floyd saying he can’t breath was a form of resisting arrest. Oh boy.

Meanwhile, the Biden administration is pushing ahead with an infrastructure bill. In a surprising twist (NOT!) no Republicans are going to vote for it, regardless of what is in the bill. Joe has said he’s open to good ideas. The Republicans have none. They’d like the bill to be smaller. You know. Smaller. Why? Well, you know. Will they vote for the smaller bill? No? Why make it smaller? Well you know, smaller is better. That is until they get in and then they will spend more and do nothing.

There’s a guy running ads here in Virginia that is a Republican who claims he’ll restore the economy and cut taxes. How exactly, he’s going to do the former is never mentioned. Hum.

The Biden infrastructure plan is wildly popular on all points with all types of voters. The Republicans vow to vote against it. Do they have a plan? Yes, smaller. 

Okay. Let’s summarize. The President has a plan that rebuilds America and helps people. The Republicans don’t like it. They have no plan. There plan is to fleece their base some more. 

Which would you choose? 

PS The 2020 Refund Donations Chart 

Wednesday April 7, 2021

Everyone calls her B. Come on. Yeah, I know she’s won more Grammys than anyone else and good for her. But. But. I don’t get it. Her voice is okay. But she’s no Whitney or Adele. Her staging is fabulous. I get that. When she opens her mouth, what comes out is okay. 

We were watching the latest episode of The Voice when John Legend compared one of the singers to being in the mold of Béonce (did I put the little mark in the right place?) and he said that the person wasn’t Beoncé (maybe it goes over the o?). I found myself wondering, “what am I missing?” But then again I find myself wondering that a lot. Like on most of the SNL musical guests. However, at least the last one, St. Vincent, sang. In a kind of weird Ricky Lee Jones way, but then I always thought RLJ was kind of jazzy weird. I guess I didn’t get the vibe. 

So now let’s turn to Matty G! I mentioned that I didn’t know how it could get much worse, but I didn’t have to wait long. Here we are with the news that Gaetz tried to get a blanket pardon for crimes he was not charged with. This in the closing days of the last administration. The question for some, (or should I say surprise?), is that Satan didn’t do it.

Matt had stated that he thought Satan should give it to a whole bunch of Republican colleagues, which seemed weird at the time. The reason given was he said he feared a witch hunt by the incoming Dems. But now I undersand much better. That is, at least, if Gaetz knew he was under investigation for the sex trafficking crime. Either he knew, or suspected that it was a crime or that he was under investigation, or … or he had some other crime in mind. If he had another crime what was that? Waiting for the other shoe to drop? Perhaps?

Some folks are acting like sex with a 17 year old is so slimy. Come on. We are talking Republicans here. No big deal. Not compared to what they have done in the past. This is right in their playbook. I mean it was a seventeen year old girl. That’s unusual. Typically, it would be a boy. At least, if you were a god fearing Christian.

Oh well. Moving on.

In a hysterical comment, Mitch McConnell said businesses should stay out of politics.

This from the man who gets more money from corporations than any other elected representative. The man whose name is on the Supreme Court law suit that allows corporations to give as much money as they want to political campaigns and not have to disclose it. Yeah. Right. Okay. 

Tell you what. I think Chuck Schumer should put on the floor “The Mitch McConnell Corporation Stay Out of Politics” bill, which would ban all contributions and activities by corporations or board members in politics. I’m sure Mitch would go for it! Talk about reaching across the aisle! 

Meanwhile, the talk of the voting rights bill continues to be talked about. Either Joe Manchin is willing to vote to get rid of the cloture rule or not. If not, then this is a dead issue because I don’t see how that could be tied to budget reconciliation.

Meanwhile, I hope the campaign to educate the red states that the $1400 checks they are receiving would not have happened if their elected Republican representatives had had their way.

PS Kim Shocker! (Kim this week, but I say Matt next week! Are you with me? Hello?)

Tuesday April 6, 2021

There used to be this detective show – 77 Sunset Strip

The guy who parked the cars was named Kookie Burns. He had this super cool car and this great DA haircut, which he would carefully comb. He was the guy that John Travolta modeled his character in Grease after and the Fonz in Happy Days. Don’t remember any of those references? When were you born? OMG. Nevermind.

Oh, one more thing. Kookie was so cool that there was a song about him and his comb, which is what this screed is named. ( The title of the song. … 77 Sunset Strip … Day 77? Get it? OMG. Do I have to explain everything? )

I woke up thinking about all the people who have been directly effected by the death of George Floyd. I only know a few. 

– The young clerk who got the bad twenty and told his boss. “If I had just said nothing and put it in the drawer…”

– The manager who called the cops. What if he had just run out and said to Floyd, “Hey man this is no good. You got another?”

– The people who watched the killing and tried to get the police to stop.

– What if Floyd had driven away instead of sitting in his car?

What if?

I read a brief article about the governor of South Dakota. What a disaster for the state and our country. How many people has her lack of action or her stupid action caused people to die? She is ignoring reality and pushing lies all because – what? She thinks it will lead to bigger things for her politically?

Who is in charge here? The argument being used by this woman and many others that are following Satan’s behavior is that this is where there voters are at so they are following them. Aren’t you supposed to be leading? Not following? If your people are trying to kill themselves wouldn’t it be your duty to point this out to them and stop it? Not become complicit in their deaths?

Just ask the people who watched George Floyd die. They wished they had done more. They have great guilt and anguish, which will haunt them for many years to come. You? You don’t because you’ve convinced yourself of a string of lies. The virus doesn’t care. It kills regardless and you are aiding and abetting it.

Apparently the Democratic National Committee is erecting big signs on billboards in various states thanking Joe Biden for the Covid Relief Bill. And pointing out which senators voted for it and which did not. 

No Republican in either chamber voted for it.

Just remember what the Republicans did for you when they were in charge. 

(Answer: Nothing. Remember all those House bills that went to the Senate? They didn’t bring up any of them for discussion, much less a vote.)

Oh Matt Gaetz? Word is that we haven’t seen or heard the worst of it. Really? How much worse can it get? I mean sex with a minor, drugs, sex trafficking isn’t bad enough? It can get worse? OMG. Kookie lend me your spoon!

Apparently, Republicans are attacking big business for having the audacity to say out loud that the right to vote should be allowed for all citizens. Can you imagine? OMG II.

Let’s see what else? The NRA, remember them? For some reason there is a trial in Texas over its bankruptcy. Yet, New York is where they are based and being investigated. The New York AG has asked the judge presiding in the Texas case to throw out the bankruptcy claim and appoint a trustee to run the organization. The AG said the only reason they filed for bankruptcy was because that would make it harder for the AG to see what was going on internally in that organization. Also, by appointing a trustee Wayne LaPierre would no longer be in charge – too bad.

You know there are so many slimy things the Republicans are doing it’s hard to keep track. Turns out the Satan organization ramped up donations in the last year of the campaign by putting fine print in their fund raising to make a one time donation a multiple donation. Both campaigns were running at about 2% return rate until the last year then it ramped up for Donnie. It went to 10% and after the election 12% return rate. Hundreds of thousands of returns were processed, credit cards cancelled, claims of fraud filed – this is what Trump did to his most loyal supporters. Imagine what he would do to others?

Aside from the fraud claims, the effect was that the Trump organization got the use of their supporters’ money in the critical lead up to the election. They also siphoned off money via processing fees to a Satan backed processing group. This is what #45 has done for you loyal supporters!

Right on.